HealthDote: A blockchain-based model for continuous health monitoring using interplanetary file system

Abstract

The Healthcare industry demands increased privacy and security to protect confidential patient information and comply with regulations. Both these features can be incorporated into the existing systems using Blockchain technology. The only challenge faced here is the ease of users, but this can be quickly resolved by integrating the Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain. IoT-based devices overcome limited computing capacity for personal intelligent health devices. Cloud-assisted IoT devices also require limited storage capacity for devices like wearable sensors. However, it must be considered that this system still has drawbacks, leading to its inefficiency. These problems include Data Privacy and Data sharing. This paper proposes an Interplanetary File System (IPFS) based solution to these problems. Here, the users continually upload the health data collected by IoT devices and add them to blockchain transactions that the other user nodes, such as physicians, pharmacists, insurance companies, hospital authorities, etc., can access. This system ensures the well-being of the users by monitoring the data gathered every 5 min and daily. It also facilitates the alarm feature in an emergency, making it reliable. The user receives daily notifications regarding his lifestyle, and the family members receive the notifications on his behalf if there are some chances of an emergency. The authorized doctors are also notified immediately in case an emergency is detected. Apart from this feature, the user can get consultations from doctors, prescriptions from the pharmacist, funds from insurance authorities, and hospital supplies, all through the transaction on the six blockchains of HealthDote using the cryptocurrency DoteCoins, which are designed specifically for this system.